


Space Is Cold

by giulia_liddell



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Cold, Emo Space Prince, First Order Betting Pool, Force Bond (Star Wars), I don't know what I'm doing, I'm running on coca cola and anger, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Sad Kylo Ren, Self-Indulgent, Space is cold, That's Not How The Force Works, The Force, This was probably a bad idea bear with me, humans in space, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22304356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giulia_liddell/pseuds/giulia_liddell
Summary: Space is cold.Kylo Ren doesn't have heat in his quarters.(Beware, it is significantly less funny than it sounds, it's actually quite sad)
Kudos: 13





	Space Is Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This... This is something, for sure. I don't know.  
> I was feeling upset and had no one to talk to, so instead, I wrote this. Because who needs therapy when you can just open Microsoft Word, right? (I'm joking)
> 
> Anyway, here it is, without any kind of Beta Reading.

_Space is cold._

_There’s a limited amount of heat that a spaceship can produce. If you are still feeling cold, you just cover up with more layers and more heavy fabric._

_There are a few races that naturally handle low temperatures very well and don’t have any problems with the cold dry air of the spaceships. The human race is not one of those. Despite the famous adaptability of the human race, temperatures are still one of the biggest problems to solve. Still, everyone knows that humans won’t cause any problem just for a few degrees of temperature, they are still very hard workers and very resilient beings. They don’t complain, if they suffer, they do it in silence and they go on until the job is done._

_There’s a saying in the galaxy: “if you want to survive, bring a human with you, they’ll do more than their body can handle and still find the energy to smile while they do it.” Space is cold. But for a human, it's just a minor inconvenience. Everyone knows this._

That’s precisely why everyone in the First Order wonders why Kylo Ren quarters are never heated. At first, the technicians thought that there was a malfunction in the system, but after checking and checking again, the system was judged perfectly functioning. The soldiers thought that Lord Ren perhaps accidentally destroyed the heating system of his quarters during training and refused to tell anyone, but as funny as that idea was it couldn’t be true: not only Ren had a training room available for himself and the Knights of Ren, but the really weird thing was that all his quarters on all the different First Order ships and bases weren’t heated. The cleaning staff theorized that it was an attempt to weaken Kylo Ren made by General Hux since he famously despised him, but that resulted to be wrong too when Hux was also shocked to know the problem with Lord Ren’s quarters.

The mystery remained, and soon everybody started regularly making bets as to why Kylo Ren’s quarters were always left cold. There had to be a reason, in the end. Everyone knew that despite his appearance, despite the mask, despite the power, Kylo Ren was still human, and humans needed heat.

The betting pool seemed to finally be over when a mechanic suggested that the Supreme Leader Snoke himself was responsible for this weird problem. The theory stated that it was actually part of Lord Ren’s training to strengthen himself and to learn to live in the most hostile conditions. Everyone agreed that it seemed the most plausible idea, but then Kylo Ren officially completed his training by making his sacrifice and the heating problem remained. At that point, everyone gave up on finding out why. It was better to let it be a mystery, one of the many surrounding the figure of Kylo Ren.

The most outlandish theory on the heating problem of Kylo Ren’s quarters was, ironically, the one that got closer to the truth. A kid, a recruit in training, was the one to suggest it.

The poor kid, who was taken just a few years before, was still trying to adjust to his life as a little soldier and the only thing that gave him the strength to endure all that fear and pain was telling and hearing stories. The greatest pastime of the human race and their most perfected way to escape their reality. Thanks to this incredibly effective form of escapism, the kid learned from the other little ones who trained with him about the great Resistance, the ruthless general Hux, the marvellous habitats of the farthest planets, the righteous Jedi and, of course, the mysterious and powerful Lord Kylo Ren. The tale of the most shining star of light who became the darkest of the black holes, that was certainly one of the greatest tales the kid had ever heard, a tragedy like no other that became a legend and an epic to the eyes of the First Order.

The kid thought that a man like that, a dark prince, a black knight, an evil commander like Kylo Ren, must have been the only human powerful enough to be his own affliction. Cold. That coldness must have been coming from the great Kylo Ren himself. It was not a problem of the system, it was not petty sabotage by General Hux and it was not part of a training routine designed by Snoke, it was Lord Ren’s power that permeated his quarters with such cold that the heating system couldn’t keep up to it. All the kids believed it because kids find it easier to believe that the exterior of a person must also manifest on their person or in their surroundings in some way. But none of them ever met Kylo Ren and none of them ever saw his quarters and they couldn’t imagine what the great Lord Ren was actually like.

Kylo Ren didn’t allow anyone to enter his quarters, not even droids. Nobody ever saw what his room looked like and what he looked like when he was behind the closed door. Nobody knew that hidden beside his bed he had a small chain with a few charms attached to it: a Jedi Order symbol, a Resistance symbol, a New Republic symbol and a miniature of the infamous Millennium Falcon. Nobody knew that he had a drawer filled with books from the Jedi temple that he couldn’t bear to burn. Nobody knew that he would actually try to focus on his pain from every wound and from every thought to enhance his connection to the Dark Side, always scared of losing it to the training he had in the Light. Nobody knew that he never actually undressed to sleep: he always took off only his gloves, his mask, his boots and his jacket. Everything else, the couple of layers of heavy fabric, he kept on his person. And even like that, he still shivered from the cold every night.

Nobody knew that Kylo Ren actually needed heat more than anything else.

That’s why the first thing that made him notice something new and mysterious had happened through the Force was not the presence of another person connecting with him, no, that arrived later. The first thing he noticed was the radiant heat he felt on his skin. It wasn’t a burning sensation, just a feeling of light warmth, like when you stand in the sunlight for a few seconds and you can feel it warming your face. Kylo Ren, for the first time in a long time, felt the heat again and he understood that something had changed.

_Heat. Even heat can be too much for humans. They still learned to live in the most hostile habitats, deserts included, but never actually got rid of the problem. Even someone who has always lived in the desert can suffer from the heat. Everyone thinks that humans need heat, but they actually need balance. There’s a specific area on the thermometer that is neither hot nor cold, and that’s the ideal for human beings. Not hot, not cold, just balanced._

_So, humans actually need a mixture of both hot and cold to survive. They can’t last long in excess of one thing or the other, they’ll wither like flowers._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm actually sorry for this.  
> Truly.


End file.
